{"id":134573,"date":"2024-12-08T03:19:52","date_gmt":"2024-12-07T20:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=134573"},"modified":"2024-12-08T03:19:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T20:19:52","slug":"unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooting-opens-floodgates-of-americans-insurance-frustrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=134573","title":{"rendered":"UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting opens floodgates of Americans\u2019 insurance frustrations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>For years, patients in the U.S. health care system have grown frustrated with\u00a0a bureaucracy they don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n<p>Doctors are included in an insurer\u2019s network one year but not the next. Getting someone on the phone to help can be next to impossible. Coverage of care and prescriptions is often unceremoniously denied.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/show\/how-algorithms-are-being-used-to-deny-health-insurance-claims-in-bulk\"><strong>WATCH:<\/strong> How algorithms are being used to deny health insurance claims in bulk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This week\u2019s\u00a0fatal shooting\u00a0of\u00a0UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson\u00a0has unleashed a wave of public feeling \u2014 exasperation, anger, resentment, helplessness \u2014 from Americans sharing personal stories of interactions with insurance companies, often seen as faceless corporate giants.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, the words\u00a0written on ammunition\u00a0found at the shooting scene \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/ammo-used-in-health-insurance-ceos-killing-had-deny-defend-and-depose-written-on-it-ap-reports\">\u201cdelay,\u201d \u201cdeny\u201d and \u201cdepose,\u201d<\/a> echoing a phrase used to describe how insurers dodge claim payouts \u2014 amplified voices that have long been critical of the industry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of a sudden, I am fired up again,\u201d said Tim Anderson, describing how his wife, Mary, had to deal with UnitedHealthcare coverage denials before she died from Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson said they couldn\u2019t get coverage for machines to help his wife breathe or talk \u2014 toward the end, she communicated by blinking when he showed her pictures. The family had to rely on donations from a local ALS group, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe business model for insurance is don\u2019t pay,\u201d said Anderson, 67, of Centerville, Ohio.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Mary could still talk, she said to me to keep fighting this,\u201d he added. \u201cIt needs to be exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Anderson and others, Thompson\u2019s death and the message left at the scene have created an opportunity to vent their frustrations. Conversations at dinner tables, office water coolers, social gatherings and on social media have pivoted to the topic, as police efforts\u00a0to find the gunman\u00a0keep the case in the news.<\/p>\n<p>Hans Maristela said he understands why the chatter is bubbling up. The 54-year-old caregiver in California was moved to comment on Facebook about UnitedHealthcare\u2019s reputation of denying coverage. As a Catholic, he said, he grieves Thompson\u2019s death and feels for his family, especially with the holidays around the corner.<\/p>\n<p>But he sees frustration with insurers even among his clients, most of them wealthy older people who\u2019ve not been shielded from high out-of-pocket costs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd then you know the\u00a0CEO of this company\u00a0you pay a lot of money to gets $10 million dollars a year, you won\u2019t have a lot of sympathy for the guy,\u201d Maristela said, citing Thompson\u2019s compensation package that included base pay and stock options. \u201cHealth care is a business, I understand, but the obsession with share price, with profit, has to be reevaluated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>University of Pennsylvania researcher Michael Anne Kyle said she\u2019s not surprised by the growth of conversation around insurers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople are often struggling with this by themselves, and when you see someone else talk about it, that may prompt you to join the conversation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Kyle studies how patients access care and said she\u2019s seen frustration with the system build for years. Costs are rising, and insurers are using more controls such as prior authorizations and doctor networks to manage them. Patients are often stuck in the middle of disputes between doctors and insurers.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/health\/how-banning-medical-debt-from-credit-reports-could-help-millions-of-americans\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> How banning medical debt from credit reports could help millions of Americans<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cPatients are already spending a lot of money on health care, and then they\u2019re still facing problems with the service,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Insurers often note that most of the money they bring in goes back out the door to pay claims, and that they try to corral soaring costs and the overuse of some care.<\/p>\n<p>In Ohio, Anderson said his initial reaction to the CEO shooting was to question whether it was connected to a coverage denial, like the ones he\u2019d experienced with his wife.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI definitely do not condone killing people,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I read it and said, \u2018I wonder if somebody had a spouse whose coverage was denied.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s something Will Flanary, a Portland-based ophthalmologist and comedian with a large social media following, saw online a lot in the shooting\u2019s immediate aftermath and found very telling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s zero sympathy,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the lesson to take away from that is not, \u2018Let\u2019s shame people for celebrating a murder.\u2019 No, it\u2019s: \u2018Look at the amount of anger that people have toward this system that\u2019s taken advantage of people and do something to try to fix that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Flanary\u2019s content, published under the name Dr. Glaucomflecken, started out as niche eye doctor jokes and a way to cope with his own experiences with two cancer diagnoses and a sudden cardiac arrest. But it has evolved, featuring character skits that call attention to and satirize the decisions of large health insurers, including UnitedHealthcare.<\/p>\n<p>He said he\u2019s never seen conversations around health insurance policy take off the way they did this week \u2014 and he hopes these new voices can help bring about change.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m always talking about how powerful social media can be with advocacy,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause it really is the only way to put a significant amount of pressure on these corporations who are doing bad things for patients.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/nation\/unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooting-opens-floodgates-of-americans-insurance-frustrations\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For years, patients in the U.S. health care system have grown frustrated with\u00a0a bureaucracy they don\u2019t understand. Doctors are included in an insurer\u2019s network one year but not the next. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=134573\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8629],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=134573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=134573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=134573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=134573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}